Four fight for top chess spot

Junior Camille Sauveur (left) of Martinique and Guyana’s Maria Thomas are among four women locked in a tie for the overall crown in the 2nd Margaret Prince Celebration Chess Tournament. (GP)

Tue, January 22, 2013 - 12:03 AM

There is now a four-way tie for first place in the 2nd Margaret Prince Celebration Chess Tournament being played at The Chess Centre in Cavans Lane, Bridgetown.

Former Barbados women’s champion Corrine Howard; Martinique women’s champion Camille Sauveur; Jamaican women’s champion Krishna Gray, and Maria Thomas, of Guyana, are on 3½ points.

For Howard, Sauveur and Gray, who started the day leading the tournament on 2 ½ points, rounds four and five proved to be slow going, as neither could manage a result better than a draw in both rounds.

However, Thomas scored critical wins against Barbados women’s champion Katrina Blackman in round four and former Barbados women’s champion Donna Murray in the fifth that allowed her to catch the lead group.

Howard, a member of the chess team in UWI Cave Hill Sports Programme, had draws against top seed and Trinidad & Tobago women’s champion Aditi Soondarsingh in round four and with Sauveur, the 2012 CARIFTA girls’ Under-16 silver medallist, in round five.

Sauveur drew with Gray in the fourth round, and Gray drew with Soondarsingh in the fifth.

With two rounds to go Soondarsingh is in fifth place on three points, followed by Blackman, women’s candidate master Sheena Ramsay and Murray in sixth place with 2 ½ points. (PR)